Friday, December 12, 2014

Colors of gentrification

I took these pictures on the day I decided to just go out and suck at something I loved, so they were already a little special to me. It wasn't until a couple of days later that I heard the story behind them from a friend, and now I love them even more.
This building is one of the very first social housing projects that were constructed in my town in the 1970's, in a neighborhood that's now undergoing voracious urban planning. They built the city's new courthouse smack in the middle of it, and apparently buildings like this one are threatening whatever aesthetic the planners have in mind. So the people living in this colorful pigeonry had to be moved elsewhere. I don't know where they are supposed to have gone, but it kills me how they all tried to cheer up those tiny spaces that held their lives, how this building never looked as interesting as it does in the process of being torn down.